Looking at the history of the novel itself, we see that most people that have heard of The Phantom of the Opera have not heard about it by reading the novel: rather, they know it through some Hollywood or Broadway/West End rendition. However we see some very interesting (and important) differences between the novel and its popular culture counterparts. What may be the most important is the absence of the Persian from the Broadway and Hollywood performances. This may be due to the stage constraint of the ease with which the different acts can be performed: to genuinely portray and carry out the drowning scene in Erik's chamber towards the end of the novel might prove incredibly difficult from a practical standpoint.
On the other hand, the kind of dark themes present in the novel - themes of suspense, thrill, uncertainty, and horror - could only take full effect on the reader if they manifest themselves in the imagination. One takes leaps in their imagination to think about how a lake under an Opera House - one with a quasi-mythical creature (the Siren) guarding it. How is it possible to fall into the torture chamber from a cellar in the Opera House? What does it mean to have an iron tree? How hot and unbearable did it actually get in the chamber when the Persian and Raoul where in it? These parts are entirely left out of the movies and the musicals by which most people know the story. The reader is left by herself to explore how Leroux brings together the various dominant literary themes of the time. To read the novel is to travel back in time: the prose (though not in the original French, the translated English still possesses an aura of late nineteenth century/early twentieth writing) might eerily remind one of a somewhat fantasized realist fiction. In this way, Leroux goes one step beyond some of his contemporaries such as Leo Tolstoy: he captures the ethos of French class consciousness, the daily operations of the Opera House, and the madness and rashness of young love with great historical accuracy. But he goes one step further still, adding a sense of fantastical gravitas to it all. We know that Erik does incredible, almost magical things, but writing from the perspective of an investigative journalist, Leroux retrospectively shows how Erik's actions were almost entirely explainable: how he took the money from the managers, projected his voice in Box Five, and introduced heat and various tactile and auditory mirages into his torture chamber. In the end, to truly understand how the literary style of Leroux's time and the content and plot come together, one needs to read the novel. The musical - though amazing it may be - simply does not do the novel justice.
